


Wanderlust

by eg0cider



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Final Haikyuu Quest, Angst, Dragon Riders, Dragons, Fantasy AU, Fantasy Violence, Final Haikyuu Quest, First Time, Happy Ending, Illustrated, Illustrations, King Oikawa Tooru, Light Angst, M/M, Rating May Change, Updated weekly, Werecats, a few characters make very brief cameos that aren't worth tagging, first couple chapters are short but they'll get longer i promise, it's not completely compliant with finalhq canon but demon king oikawa is there for example, light mystery, uhhhhh this is almost an eragon au because there's werecats and dragons in the same place OOPS, yamaguchi puts up with so much
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-02-17 05:11:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13069845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eg0cider/pseuds/eg0cider
Summary: “I think the moon is sort of a guide. Like, a helpful spirit.”Tadashi, eyes glowing in the shadows, propped himself up on his elbows to listen.“If you ever get lost at sea,” Tsukishima added after a pensive moment, and Tadashi could finally see his face, alight under the moon with the childlike sense of wonder that was so heartbreakingly rare. “Follow the moonpath. It’ll lead you home.”





	1. Chapter 1

The bar was lit by a gentle, orange half-light. Around this time of evening, a typical bar would be bustling with activity, but this one was surprisingly hushed. That’s not to say that it was at all cold or unfriendly, that wasn’t the case at all. Instead, it had an atmosphere of comfort draped over it like a blanket, kept toasty by the burning lamps. 

There was only a handful of bar-goers, some drinking in silence. The ones in small groups indulged in friendly conversation, quiet as to not disturb the membrane of peace. If one listened hard enough, they could hear the very distant lapping of waves on a beach. 

A young man with messy but delicately framed dark hair sat up close to the counter, tapping at the edge of his tea in mild, but currently tame, anticipation. He wasn’t heavily geared, with the cloak and light leather padding of any average adventurer, and a sheathed sword hanging from his leather halter. The vapor of herbs and dragonfruit hovered over him like a soothing cloud.

He really lucked out with this one, Tadashi hummed thoughtfully, enjoying the warmth of the inn while he could. He would have to depart soon, anyway. The moon was likely nearing its peak. 

“What are ya doing in these parts, traveler?” 

His brown eyes flicked up to the barkeep who had spoken, currently arranging the glasses on a shelf behind the counter. The barkeep would have noted that the traveler would have had mostly unremarkable brown eyes until the moment she was fixed in their gaze, the lamplight cutting through them at just the right angle as to highlight their implicit intensity. 

The barkeep, a portly middle aged woman who had worked at this certain inn for years, looked concerned for a moment and added, “Ya don’t gotta tell me though. I always just thought it was hospitable to strike up small talk, ya know? And ya look like you’re goin’ somewhere.”

Tadashi gave the barkeep a quiet, friendly laugh to break the tension. 

“No, it’s fine,” he assured her, drumming the rim of the tea once. “I’m Tadashi Yamaguchi. The truth is, I’m from a lot further inland.”

“Yeah? What takes ya to the coast?”

The dark haired traveler turned his eyes down to watch the ripples on his tea, a small, thoughtful smile playing on his face as he toyed with what to say and what not to say. His hair created a concealing shadow over his face, making him difficult to read. As he finally settled on the words to use, he looked back up and the barkeep was momentarily fixated by his brilliance, illuminated in the soft glow. 

“I’m looking for someone.”

\------------- 

The night ocean breeze was shockingly cool after camping in the bar for a couple hours, and Yamaguchi pulled his hood up to keep the heat in. Leaving the warm lights of the inn behind felt almost sad, but the traveler couldn’t dwell on it as long as he had his goals to keep his focus at a point. 

The coastal city of Tholstead seemed friendly enough, he noted as he walked down the side of a street. There were some people out and about but not many, as the time of night typically didn’t call for large crowds. A few vendors lined the road, and Tadashi could smell something sweet and starchy and incredibly tempting. 

“Come get some! Get it while they’re hot and fresh! Sweet potato fries!,” a rambunctious voice called out over the sizzling sounds from his own booth. The voice went quiet for a fraction of a second, and when it reappeared it sounded almost muffled, as if it was chewing something. “They’re just… FUCK they’re good!” The vendor worker was quickly subdued by his coworker, muttering something about professionalism. 

Mouth watering, Tadashi kept his gaze forward and avoided eye contact with any of the enthusiastic workers until they were behind him. 

A few guards walked in his opposite direction on the other side of the street, bearing the symbol of the Demon King himself. He felt himself tense up a little bit, in the way that law enforcement always makes him feel even if he hasn’t done anything wrong. They weren’t threatening and they mostly just seemed understandably bored to be there, but Tadashi avoided eye contact with them too. 

Fortunately, he had plenty of other places to look. Tholstead was an attractive city, not extremely high-end but lavish in lanterns and appealing coastal style buildings. Distantly, he could see what seemed to be a library or museum with fancy pillars divided in front of the entryway. That piqued his interest, but he grit his teeth and beat back that temptation with a mental broom. 

Something brushed up against his leg and he jumped, looking down to see the flick of a tail and a flash of yellow eyes staring up from the cobblestone that seemed as equally offended to have bumped into him. 

“S-sorry?” he said to the stray cat, though he wasn’t quite sure why he was apologizing. The cat unceremoniously turned away and continued slinking by. As if distracted, it wandered off the streetside away from him and onto the open cobblestone. There was a cart coming, rattling noisily, and a spike of alarm shot through Tadashi.

“Hey, watch out-” he shouted, stretching out a hand as if to grab the cat or block its path or _something_. The cat’s ears flicked towards the wooden wheel rolling towards it and with exquisite reflexes and speed it whipped around and leapt into the arms of a close-by civilian with an angry hiss. Having followed the cat’s leap to the stranger, Tadashi closed his mouth and swallowed back the brief flare of panic. It was a relatively tall man, with fantastically messy black hair and a laugh that could cut steel as he playfully rubbed the top of the cat’s head. Under the strange man’s arm, the cat gave Tadashi a final, indignant look before it’s yellow eyes vanished from the street lights. The spot where it had brushed against his leg seemed to tingle. 

This place is weird, he finally decided. Not a bad weird. It certainly seemed detached from the rest of the world. Even the guards were at peace. A good weird. 

The dark haired traveler found his way to the docks at the base of the city. The boathouse was naturally closed at this time of night, but Yamaguchi had already rented a boat earlier that evening upon his arrival. He remembered walking into the dusty, one-roomed building to an extremely bored worker- Boat master? Boat guy?- who seemed genuinely surprised to see him. Surprised enough that the lit cigarette almost fell from his open mouth. Nothing in the place looked like it had been touched in ages. 

“You’d think this place would be busier on a lovely evening,” Tadashi had joked, gently prying with a nervous laugh. The boat master, who had dark eyebrows and pushed-back blonde hair, took a long, tired drag from his cigarette before answering. 

“You must be new here, huh kid?” His voice was gruff, maybe ten years older than the man himself. “You didn’t see the warning signs?”

Tadashi had blinked, concern and a little bit of bashfulness rising up to color his face. 

“No, sorry. What do I have to be worried about?”

The man pointed at the wall behind Tadashi and he turned, noticing a poster tacked up next to the doorframe. The poster seemed to have been turned into a makeshift dart board, with hundreds of tiny holes and several darts still embedded in it. Someone’s anger and boredom had been directed at that poster for quite a long time. 

The sign read:

WARNING

PIRATES

Tadashi had followed through with the boat rental anyways. The boat renter looked at him like a crazy person, which was honestly pretty understandable, but he did seem at least a little bit happy to have business. Tadashi had thanked the man, who took the money with an awestruck shake of his head and retreated back to the boathouse. Before the door closed, Yamaguchi could have sworn he heard a very quiet mutter of, “Fucking pirates.”

Now he stood by the edge of the ocean, just beyond the lapping of the waves that crept. up and down the sand towards his feet. He had his boat. The water was calm, quiet. The gigantic moon was shining high in the sky and casting a silver, brilliant path across the water. It was a magical image, powerful in a way that brought to him a sense of serenity rather than fear. 

Tadashi took in a breath, trembling slightly whether from the chilled saltwater breeze or from anticipation. 

Take the leap, Tadashi, the voice in his head whispered. He set his jaw. 

Gripping the sides of the boat, he pushed it forward hard, cold water soaking into his feet for an instant before leaping aboard and then he was on the open water, sailing towards the moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello wow! This is my first fic and I'm estimating it'll probably be around 15-20 chapters, maybe more. I'm actually on chapter five right now but I'm staggering the releases a little bit (probably one chapter per week?) so I can have time to toss in a light illustration for each chapter. This one is pretty short but the chapters will get quite a bit longer as the story progresses a little. my writing style sounds so pretentious omg but I hope it fits the genre.
> 
> please leave a kudos and/or comment if you'd like to see more!


	2. Chapter Two

“Oof- _hey-_ STOP stop stopstop _stop_ ,” the child choked out between giggles, bracing his arms against his friend’s chest in a feeble attempt to push him off. Tadashi sat back triumphantly, sunlight and dark hair falling messily over his face, and laughed. His voice was a lot higher back then, a voice that could be described as girlish. 

The other kid, who was the same age as Tadashi and had an exerted blush on his cheeks, sat up and re-adjusted his glasses in a valiant effort to appear as dignified as possible before saying, “It’s cause I went easy on you. Don’t let it get to your dumb head.” 

Tadashi squinted at him, a smile still quirking his lips, until the kid turned his amber-brown eyes away. The grass under their feet was torn up from the brief scuffle over which one of them would get to use the Good Shovel and which one of them would get to use the Shitty Toddler Shovel in their bone-hunting expedition. The other kid refused to admit it, but he never stood a chance against Tadashi in these brief, physical skirmishes. He was just a little bit too half-assed and Tadashi would always be able to isolate a weak point, such as the ticklish spot on the side of his waist that would cause him to collapse in a shaking, blonde heap. The darker haired child was nothing short of _merciless_ when it came to showing the kid up and dragging him from his pedestal back to earth. 

The two dug in the backyard of a somewhat shabby looking house, sunlight dappling them though the leaves that were turning gently under a breeze. Green mountains crested the horizon around them like the rim of a bowl. Wherever this place was, it was far from the beach city of Tholstead. 

Their bone-hunting expeditions had originally just begun as a treasure-hunting, or more realistically garbage-hunting, activity that the two engaged in when they were bored. One day, the blonde kid had the luck to stumble across the bones of what could have been a rabbit, probably buried by a fox years previously. Tadashi could tell, watching those usually-bored but currently _enraptured_ golden eyes, that from this point forward he wouldn’t settle for anything less. 

The expedition proved itself to be unsuccessful, as it usually ended up being. But the two laid in the grass behind that house, mildly disappointed but contented in their day’s work as they watched the clouds drift across the sunset-orange sky and picked dirt out from under their nails. 

“Tsukki, when are you gonna let me meet your family?” Tadashi had asked this question a couple times before, but Kei Tsukishima shrugged it off with the perfect casualness he had displayed then as well. 

“Maybe tomorrow if you behave,” the blonde kid said bluntly, gaze fixed upwards with his hands behind his head. 

Tadashi immediately protested, “You said that last time!”

“Guess you didn’t behave.”

The freckled child huffed and dropped the topic. In physical contest Tadashi always came out on top, but he could never beat this kid’s level of mental stubbornness. 

Behind one of the mountains, the moon began to rise, a ghost in the still barely-light sky. Watching Tsukishima out of the corner of his eye, he could see the kid following the moon’s path the interest and perked ears of a watchdog.

“What is it about the moon that you like so much?” he asked finally, and Tsukishima looked bashful for a moment. Tadashi felt a flicker of victory, having pulled out a correct guess about the usually so reserved Tsukishima. It was clear by the way he suddenly looked vulnerable that Tsukishima wasn’t used to people being able to read him. 

“It’s just something that my family sort of… passed down I guess. I mean, I don’t think it’s exclusive to us, I think it might be a common thing to say,” he replied thoughtfully, face turned away. 

“What is it?”

“I think the moon is sort of a guide. Like, a helpful spirit.” 

Tadashi, eyes glowing in the shadows, propped himself up on his elbows to listen.

“If you ever get lost at sea,” Tsukishima added after a pensive moment, and Tadashi could finally see his face, alight under the moon with the childlike sense of wonder that was so heartbreakingly rare. “Follow the moonpath. It’ll lead you home.”

Tadashi Yamaguchi realized that he felt something towards Tsukishima that he only felt when beginning a new adventure, or looking at the distant mountains. It was a pang in his core, a sense of something to be reached towards, a good kind of hurt barely painful enough to keep him on his toes and moving towards it. He couldn’t put his finger on what this feeling was, but it yawned open like a pit inside him, desperately hungry. It frustrated him how much he couldn’t put the feeling into words, couldn’t find the right string of vocabulary to make sense out of it.

But maybe he was just too young. 

\-------------------------------------------

That was the feeling that he felt now, sailing towards the path cast by that white guiding spirit above him. The waves pushed his wooden boat up and down with a rhythm that would lull a baby to sleep. 

Tadashi enjoyed the voyage, enjoyed the near complete silence apart from the gentle lapping. Even the sea birds were asleep. It was beautiful, and he could taste the music of the sea and moon. 

He sailed for more than an hour under the stars, and the moonpath grew gradually thinner as the moon climbed higher still. He wasn’t worried, he knew the path wouldn’t vanish. A conviction and hunger kept him pushing forward, away from the land that had faded into non-existence a good while ago. 

Tadashi’s focus, the one keeping him awake, was to keep his head above the creeping darkness of doubt that was rising up and down in him like the silver waves. He knew, no, he assumed that this was the path he had left to take. And the fact that it was indeed an assumption, and the moon might not _really_ lead him to where he needed to be, felt like a betrayal of his conviction. 

Playing with the boat’s rope, meticulously tying it and untying it to distract himself, he let his mind wander back to the city behind him. If he gave up soon, at least there was an attractive town behind him to return to. Then he could try again tomorrow night, as long as the sky was clear. 

But this- the conditions really were _perfect_. And he didn’t know shit about sailing. 

Something crested on the horizon, black against the midnight blue-purple of the sky. Immediately standing up in the boat, bracing his feet to keep from falling over, the traveler watched the small, dark shape with trepidation and uncertainty. 

A pirate ship? He hoped not. Not that he really had much to plunder, anyway. The shape wasn’t moving. As he drifted closer, he confirmed with himself that it indeed wasn’t a pirate ship, as it didn’t seem to have any sort of towering sail. 

No, he thought, grinning like an idiot. _That’s an island_. Tadashi had found an island, and it was peeking up above the moonpath. The anticipation that had faded in the hours he’d sailed suddenly came bubbling back up, bursting from him in the form of gleeful laughter. _That’s an island!_

He giddily put himself back to work, rowing hard against the currents of the water. Everything seemed oddly still, as if magically suspended. Even the moon, which had been slowly making its nightly rounds across the sky, seemed to be frozen in place above the island. Whatever this place was, it wasn’t just an island, it was the island. 

As Tadashi got closer, he noted how small it was. There were a few distant trees like toothpicks, and a large slope concealing the other side of the island. The rim of the sandy beach was dotted with boulders.

Most importantly, Tadashi scanned it for signs of life, heart pounding in his throat. He couldn’t see any visible camping spots or buildings, but he also couldn’t see the other side of the island. _It’s fine_ , he told himself. _There’s gotta be something. There can’t be nothing_. Something that would at least point him in the right direction, or give him a sense of closure. 

When the boat hit the sandy surface, the traveler leapt off and pulled it a few meters up the shore, limbs shaking and tingly. 

“Hello?” he called out. There weren’t any sleeping sea birds in the trees to disturb, but he still felt like he was intruding on something. Now that he was on the shore, he did actually see some scattered signs of human life. There was an ancient, rusted anchor shining beneath the surface of the water, and a tattered strip of fabric half-covered by the sand. Kneeling down to pull the fabric out, he found it to fall apart in his hands at the slightest pull. Old, was the word that sat bitter and unspoken in his mouth. 

 

 _It’s ok, there’s still the rest of the island,_ he thought hopefully, desperate to quell the vague sense of loss that was starting to eat at him. He stood up and ran up the hill, feet skidding on mismatched patches of stringy grass and sand. 

He almost didn’t want to see the other side of the island, was afraid of being crushed by the possibility of simply nothing. But as he stopped and leaned against a tree at the height of the slope to catch his breath, his eyes widened to take in the wonderfully unexpected picture that lay before him. 

This hill he was standing on, Tadashi hadn’t been able to make out the other side of when he was pulling in. But now, at the top, Tadashi could see that it simply didn’t have another side. 

The earth had been completely cleaved away in a curved crescent, all the way down to the level of the beach. He was standing at the edge of a sea cliff, fifty feet high, where there should be a breeze but the only thing enveloping him was still air. And in the curve of the cliff below him and to his left was a dark, gaping cave. Like a mouth. 

His excitement and relief that there was one final saving grace to his adventure stilled suddenly, and he sank into a defensive crouch. Instincts honed like a knife, Yamaguchi could tell when something seemed off, and the frantic whispering of Danger, Danger, Danger far from escaped him. It rose up like a tidal wave, dark claws enveloping his heart and squeezing it and making every hair on his body stand on end. This was the sensation of being watched but a million times more poignant and it took every tense fiber in Tadashi’s body not to bolt like a frightened deer. 

He didn’t want to go near that cave. Nope. Might as well throw in the towel now because he wasn’t down for that shit. Not with the way he was shaking and clammy all over, cold sweat on his neck. Feebly sinking back against the tree, he tilted his head back and tried to get oxygen back into his brain and tame his nausea. 

This was real, mortal fear. This was the fear of a mouse being stalked by a fox, flashing images of blood smeared fur driving it into a white panic the second before it runs in exactly the wrong direction. 

But he couldn’t just… leave. 

Because he could also smell smoke. And smoke meant life. 

“Hello? My name is Tadashi Yamaguchi. I’m a traveler.” he called out again, before biting his lip down on his treacherously not-very-brave voice. 

Something in that sense of danger shifted, like a physical, massive shadow uncurling itself. Tadashi knew for sure that he was being watched now and he squeezed his eyes shut. A few clicks of stone alerted him to movement on the side of the cliff, bouncing and echoing all the way down the cliff. There was something, an actual something that was moving around him, pulling itself up from the cliffside with chilling stealth. The way the earth shifted with its movement alerted Tadashi that this thing was big and so, so fucking far from human. 

“ _Human_ ,” a voice purred and Tadashi could hear it from everywhere, from the earth and tree he was pressed and shaking against, from inside his skull. “Purred” was the only appropriate word he could use to describe it- low, grinding, and fathomless. Pulling in a shaky breath, he couldn’t help but to sink his head into his hands, a childish attempt to hide himself from the voice. It was almost laughable, really, being shoved back into the body of a frightened kid hiding from his nightmares. 

He was going to die here. Thus ends the Very Brief Moonlit Adventure of Tadashi Yamaguchi. 

“ _Why are you here, human._ ”

The way the question was stated sounded less like a question and more like a threat, but it was compelling and forceful enough to make Tadashi answer. 

“I was- I was following the moonpath,” he started shakily, eyes still closed. The presence around him was incredibly oppressive and somehow felt close enough to reach out and touch. The urge wasn’t difficult to resist. “The moonpath is supposed to guide people and I’m- looking for someone.”

In that moment, the bravery of his conviction overcame him just enough to allow his eyes to open. He was looking for someone, and he was going to find that someone no matter what. He faced the monster with this candle of hope, and suddenly seeing the thing itself created a domino effect that caused all of the fear in his body to melt into sheer wonder. 

This monster had a long, lithe body that was curved around him, blocking escape routes. The color was something to be marveled at, a pale shining yellow like gold but much paler, light spots dancing across smooth, close-knit scales. Two angular wings blocked out the stars, tall and unfurled like sails. A long neck was curled towards him, topped with a triangular head with ram-like pale horns that curved out from just above its jawline and ended in points on either side of its muzzle. Tadashi caught a white flash of predatory teeth and his heart skipped a beat.

He had never seen a dragon in person. Hell, people were considered extremely lucky if they’d ever seen a dragon and even luckier if they had lived to tell the tale. He wasn’t thinking about that though, because he was enraptured in the last detail of the monster, the cherry on top of a horrifying scaly sundae. 

The dragon had amber eyes, lit from behind with a remarkable wit and intelligence. There was an odd pattern of scales around its eyes, darker than the rest of the topaz coloration, curved around each eye and connected by a single band between them. Like _glasses_. 

Tadashi didn’t even need to think about it. He knew those eyes. 

“Oh my god, _Tsukki no_ ,” he breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sup nerds it's me again, posting this chapter I wrote like.. weeks ago. I imagine you probably have some questions but as you probably picked up at the beginning with the flashback, I'll slowly be unraveling the weird shit as the story progresses. Also lmao this illustration is so basic but hopefully next chapter's drawing makes up for it.
> 
> please leave a kudos or comment if you wanna see more thank you ily


	3. Chapter Three

Tadashi didn’t even need to think about it. He knew those eyes. 

“Oh my god, _Tsukki no_ ,” he breathed. 

The dragon blinked, as if it was caught off guard. Eyelids slid over two golden irises, and as they reopened Yamaguchi caught a glimpse of a second pair of eyelids, a white flash under the main ones. Calculating, slit pupils contracted under the change of light, and he was completely frozen in between them. 

The two watched each other, still, curious, and apprehensive. Like unfamiliar animals. The sense of threat had faded from a cacophonous orchestra to a tentative piano, but the traveler’s heart still pounded in his ears like it was attempting to pump as much blood as it could before being spilled from his body. 

Of course, the presence of the literal _dragon_ wasn’t the sole element that was making his heart flutter like a dying bird. He knew it, _he did it._ He found him, somehow, on a moonlight’s whim. 

“...Tsukishima?” The word came slowly and uncertain as Tadashi quietly laid down the syllables of his friend’s name, tilting his head as he searched the dragon’s eyes for a flicker of recognition. 

Was he in there? Hiding behind teeth and plated armor?

Maybe if he touched it- just, reached out his hand and brushed it against the smooth hardness, then maybe-

He had no sooner collected this thought than the dragon suddenly curled away. Breaking the paralyzing yellow gaze, it twisted back over itself with reptilian speed and curled back underneath the cliff edge. Tadashi caught a flicker of the end of a tail vanishing into the darkness of the cave. As he stared, he was again met with two distant, defensive eyes, narrowed into slits and glowing from the black like burning coal. 

_So that’s your hole,_ he thought vaguely, still keeled into a sitting position. The oppressive force that had his muscles wrapped tight had vanished with the monster, and he let his lungs fill with air as he flopped onto his back. 

 

The stars bored down on him as he recollected himself, absentmindedly pulling up grass. A million questions danced around his head in a haze and he tried to sort out the more pressing ones. But right now, none of that was important. What was important was that he was on a mysterious island with a dragon that had Kei Tsukishima’s eyes and the dragon could have eaten him but the dragon did not. 

His current options boiled straight down to A, leave immediately and maybe probably survive to tell the tale. He could return to the beautiful coastal city of Tholstead, buy some sweet fries, and recount the story of his encounter and escape from a terrifying, hungry dragon to an amazed and full-hearted pub. 

Or B, he could stay, and he could press his luck. And somehow, one way or another, he could discover more before his ultimately ambiguous fate. 

Tadashi smiled to weakly himself, already defeated.

_Sorry Mom, you might not get any more letters from me._

He had been handed a fire, and now he was expected to _not_ stoke it? It would ensure his own survival, at least. 

Still, the dragon _hadn’t_ hurt him. Whether it knew him or not, it had spared him, for one reason or another. And Tadashi was going to latch onto that glimmer of hope. 

\-----------

He had found a way to get down to the beachfront nestled at the bottom of the crescent-shaped sea cliff by making his way to a far point of the island, where the slope of the hill met sea level. Tadashi didn’t attempt to approach the cave. He was both relatively brave and relatively _dumb_ , given the decision he’d made, but still neither _that_ brave or dumb. 

Instead, he stood on the shoreline and threw rocks at the water with his back to the cave. He hadn’t grown up by any large bodies of water, so he had never really learned to skip rocks. So he paced, pulling ones that seemed roughly round and flat out of the sand, and attempted to spin them at angles that would cause them to skid off the dark surface. All the while, his ears were perked and alert for signs of movement from the cave, and he felt the two eyes burning into him from the hole like a defensive cat. 

As he was pacing up and down the shore, a strange pattern in the sand caught his attention. It was up the shore quite a ways, pressed up against the side of the cliff. It looked sort of like a star, or an asterisk. Four straight lines intersecting with each other at a center point to make eight rays. And on one side, at the end of one ray and facing the moon, was a simple drawn circle. He frowned, biting the inside of his cheek. 

He was sure it meant something, but it was already so simple that there wasn’t anything else to discern. 

The rocks he tossed sunk pathetically into the water, no matter which way he turned his wrist or what angle he threw them. Despite himself, a spike of frustration started grating into him. But under the ever-watchful eyes, he didn’t show it. Instead, he sank cross-legged onto the sand to face the sea and wait.

This was trust. At least, that was the image he wanted to convey to the dragon. As much as he didn’t necessarily like turning his back to it, it was a good deal less risky than prancing into it’s cave as if to shout _Hey big guy, I’m one fresh and tasty morsel!_ He wanted to get close to it. He wanted it to trust him. 

Nice and slow. Like a stray cat. Let it come to you, unless you’re willing to take the ends of its claws.

It was a long time before he heard any movement. A few scattering pebbles, barely audible shifting sand. Tadashi turned his head just enough to scan the cliffside out of the corner of his eye. At first, he didn’t see anything, just jagged rock. But a stone fell, and from its place he could make out a piece of rock that looked somewhat off- just a little bit too smooth and carved like a sickle. Following the curve, his eyes adjusted like a lens focusing and he could suddenly make out the draconic foot the- he could see it now- the claw was attached to, a folded wing, a ribbed flank, perfectly still and blended into the cliff with uncanny ease. 

He almost started when his brain had caught up to his eyes, and his mouth went completely dry under the spike of adrenaline. Still, he remained frozen and quiet. There was no threat, just curiosity. It was curious, it wanted to study him. At least, that’s the fantasy he reassured himself with, clutching at the fabric of his pants and digging into it with his fingers. 

Very brave, or very stupid. 

_Let it come to me._

The dragon, fortunately or unfortunately, didn’t. He eventually turned to face it, hair illuminated from behind by the moonglow. And they sat, and watched each other, forty or so feet of sand between them. 

“You’re in there, aren’t you, Tsukki?” he asked quietly. The waves responded with a rising and retreating hiss. Tadashi bit the inside of his cheek, trying to find the invisible connection. He was usually pretty good at dipping his fingers into emotional currents to try to decipher what another person was thinking, but there was something so bizarrely alien and unreadable about the monster. Well, he snorted, obviously. 

Still, the apprehensive yellow eyes stared from the sea cliff, and it occurred to Yamaguchi that the dragon could actually be _scared._ He slowly rose to his feet, brushing the sand off of his pants, all smooth movements. 

“What, did you think I wouldn’t recognize you because you’re all scaley and stuff now? You’re _dense._ Do you know that you have a glasses pattern on your face?”

The dragon coiled its head back and looked away with an expression that almost seemed haughty. A tongue flicked out for a brief moment, a bright spark running down it’s length with an audible Tsk. Tadashi’s jaw dropped, a rush of nostalgia setting his hair on end at the sheer _Tsukki-ness_ of the gesture. 

“You absolute dolt,” he whispered.

“You absolute dolt! You’ve been gone for years. Fucking years, Tsukki! I don’t know or care how you ended up like this, but you can’t just pretend you’ve never seen me before. _‘Human’_ my ass,” he scolded, mocking the way the dragon had designated him. Now he was on a roll, sounding more and more like his mother every passing word. Looking affronted (and very sheepish), the dragon flicked its tail like a cat and fixed a hard gaze at the other end of the island. Tadashi could tell that he was aggravating the poor thing, but god damn did it deserve it. 

“Absolutely nothing! Just gone, not even a ‘Good-bye, see ya Yamaguchi’! I went back home last year and it was like you’d never existed. You could have been dead for all I knew! You could at least-” Tadashi paused to catch his breath, running a hand through his dark hair, and when he spoke again his voice was gentler. “-you could at least address me by name.”

Cold, yellow eyes glared at the far shore. 

Tadashi sighed, letting the weight fall off his chest. “I guess the circumstance is kind of weird, isn’t it. Did you think I’d care if I saw you were a dragon? Tsukki, I don’t care.” His teeth found purchase on his tongue to shut himself up. 

A silence was suspended between them like a curtain, and all he could feel was the tension of unsaid words.

“You don’t need to talk,” he murmured finally, resigned to the project in front of him. “I know you can talk, you can’t just play dumb on me all of a sudden. You’ll just do it when you feel like it, I guess. It’s always just whenever you feel like it.” 

The moonlight cut over a flash of razor, gritted teeth. The head swung over, a hiss like the sound of the waves but louder and far from serene running a claw over his eardrums. It was metallic almost, churning and undulating with sharp irritation. Tadashi’s heart stopped. He’d done it, he’d crossed the monster’s threshold of tolerance.   
But the dragon continued turning. With an adept push of its hind legs, it lept up the cliffside, wings flaring out for balance as it clung to the edge like a cat. The movement was all curved spine and lashing tail, pulling into a coil as the creature curled up on the hilltop. Its angular head fell to rest on the ground, invisible behind a massive shoulder. 

It was _sulking._

The absurdist, dangerous humor of the situation wasn’t lost on Tadashi, who smiled apologetically up at the dark form. Really, he hadn’t meant to sound that harsh. 

Then he collapsed again, knees vaporized after the brush with his own mortality. 

This was going to take a while. 

\-----------------------

Tsukishima, Tadashi was quick to learn, hadn’t gotten less stubborn since the last time he saw him. He was careful not to press his luck around the dragon, and a simple snap of it’s- well, _his_ \- jaws was enough to keep him at a secure distance. Still, Tsukishima didn’t try to hurt him, or eat him for that matter, which only stoked Yamaguchi’s resolve to pester a reaction out of him. 

“You were always the egocentric type. Maybe I was worried about you, not like you’d care,” he said, leaning against one of the sparse trees with his arms folded. The words came out a little bit bitter to the taste, and he didn’t really mean them. But there was a tail tip by his feet, and a courageous nudge caused it to snake away and tuck under the growling mass of the dragon.

He was fully aware that he was playing with fire. But, god, he just had to. The feeling of seeing an old friend turned dragon was a deep-rooted wonder that shook him to the core and held him to his resolve. And the dragon didn’t retreat to his cave either (after the first initial shock), just bounced from point to point on the island and rested until Tadashi annoyed him enough to move. 

 

Until Tadashi started avoiding him too, just to see. He would glance over his shoulder to see the dragon had followed, curled from a distance like he was pretending to nap, eyes barely open in calculating slits. Like he was testing the traveler, pushing at boundaries, just as much as Tadashi was pushing on his. This tug-of-war went on for painstaking hours, both animals enraptured in the other.

It was a game, more or less. A game between two obdurate creatures. 

But the moon remained still, and the young man was growing exponentially more tired and hungry. 

“Tsukki,” he said eventually, staring across the water. They’d both found a resting point on the beach, not far from Tadashi’s wooden boat. They’d been there for what felt like an hour, but time was hard to estimate. Tsukishima didn’t give any verbal inclination that he was listening, but Tadashi found attentiveness in the silence. 

“I think I need to leave.”

There was a shifting of scales, and although Tadashi couldn’t see him he imagined that the dragon had lifted its head to look at him. The mood was unreadable. Still, he quickly gestured a reassurance. 

“I’ll be back though, tomorrow night probably. If it’s clear. I think I know how to find you.”

Saltwater hissed against the sand. 

“Just follow the moonpath, right?”

He turned and smiled at him despite the haze of sleepiness, and in that moment he was dazzling under the light, like how he was back at the bar, like how he was back behind his house ten years ago. The dragon blinked in hesitant confirmation, eyes rimmed by those dark glasses-esque scales. 

“Sorry Tsukki, I’ll let you rest now.” _I’ll get through to you later,_ were the words he left unspoken. But he committed himself to them, letting the implicit strength of them bring him to his feet and approach his boat. 

His goals were evolving now. This was always the fun part of starting a new adventure, feeling the excitement of new ambitions taking him over and watching the stepping stones emerge from the uncertain depths. 

For now, his goal was to get a cheap room in Tholstead and purchase something to sate his appetite. He’d rest too, and he’d probably dream of dragons and nostalgia. 

Water, grainy with silt, sank into his shoes as he guided the boat into the sea set on the direction he had come down the moonpath.

“Later, Tsukki.”

A burning, unreadable gaze bored into his back until the island dipped below the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey fam it's me again and i am getting uhhhhhhh InCreasingly nervous as released chapters are slowly catching up to chapters I've already finished. It's cool tho, I just gotta get my lazy ass in gear.   
> hopefully this chapter has raised a few questions, and they will all be answered in future chapters.
> 
> also i love that drawing, every time I draw yamaguchi he gets a little bit prettier and i ain't gonna stop yet
> 
> please leave a kudos/comment if you wanna see more thanks i love you


	4. Chapter Four

The first thing that struck Tadashi Yamaguchi as he left the inn the following morning (with a friendly wave to the lady barkeep) was how drastically different the mood of the city was by daylight. When he had arrived the night before, Tholstead was hushed with the suspense of living mystery. Now it was all light and color and noise. And it was, undeniably, kind of wonderful. 

Sun rays cut in between buildings and fell on talkative crowds, chattering under the blue expanse of the sky. The ocean sparkled from a distance, fragments of it visible for an instant beyond bustling citizens. Though he wasn’t all too fond of crowds, Tadashi let himself enjoy the excitement that the noise carried with it. He basked in the late morning glory, strands of hair illuminated gold by the sun as he walked down the cobblestone. 

Images of the dragon danced in his head, and every time his mind strayed in a different direction it was jerked back to it like a dog on a leash. The glimpse of that golden iris in his mind’s eye, so akin to the sunlight touching him, made his heart swell with a nervous, bubbly energy. He should try to keep his mind off it, really. But, fuck, he couldn’t. 

Today he was going to treat himself. He had earned it, right? 

Maybe he’d hit that fry stand first, if he could find it. Then he’d stop at that white-pillared building and fight to kill time before sunset. _That’s going to be an uphill battle_ , he begrudgingly noted, squinting at the eleven o’ clock sun. 

The moment he had this thought, a flash of orange caught the corner of his eye. It was a movement just significant enough to separate it from the rest of the bright, city colors in his peripheral. 

He turned to look, just out of simple, curious desire, but all he managed to glimpse was the heel of a boot vanishing into a side street. Tadashi tried to re-conjure the image in his mind, frowning at the corner. It had been wispy, that was for sure, that’s what had made it weird. Hair? Orange hair? 

Curiosity piqued, he turned on his heel and nudged his way between passers-by. Really, he was like a dog distracted by a butterfly. Silently laughing at himself, he rounded the corner of the sidestreet in the hopes to catch the stranger’s back. This path was a good deal less crowded than the mainstreet, and he was able to just _barely_ make out the flicker of orange swerve into an alley. 

He should leave it be. That was enough, no stranger wanted to be pursued more than he had already done. Still… he’d already come this far. Just to see the kind of person that beakon of a hair color was attached to. That was harmless enough, wasn’t it?

Dodging a cart, he caught up to alley corner and peaked inside. 

There he was, a small and thin young man, facing the stone wall and topped with a messy blaze of hair. The boy cocked his head to look at Tadashi when he entered, and he found himself fixed in honey brown eyes. Intense, but somehow soft. Not unwelcoming, though hyperalert in that frozen second. He was wearing somewhat ragged civilian clothes, with a faded leather satchel swung over his shoulders. A scarf that looked too large for his body was wrapped around his neck, both ends swinging behind him in a way that was reminiscent of a poor man’s cape.

The short stranger beamed at him, eyes squeezing shut and Tadashi was freed from the intensity of the gaze. Lifting what looked like a can in one hand, the orange haired boy asked with an atmosphere of blinding glee, “Come to watch the show?”

“I… huh?” he replied intelligently, squinting at the can the boy was waving with apprehension. Something about this person was vivid in a way that was nothing short of _overwhelming_ , and it wasn’t just the hair. In response, the stranger stuck out his tongue in a childish gesture. 

“Here, just stand back or you’ll inhale the fumes!” 

_Tsssssssssst. Tssst. Tssst._

Tadashi stared wordlessly as the boy, leveling the can at the stone wall, sprayed long, black streaks of paint. He couldn’t help but watch in fascination, held in place by the person’s enthusiasm in defacing the side of the building. 

_Tssssst._

He couldn’t quite make out what the stranger was trying to do yet, but watching in silence seemed rude somehow. 

“I uh… What’s your name? Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.” _I’m certain we haven’t met._

The stranger pulled down a short streak, eyes intent, before he spoke. Tadashi could practically see the gears turning. Whatever the kid was thinking, it wasn’t subtle at all. 

“It’s uh-” He glanced back at Tadashi with a smile, raising a single finger as if to punctuate the word. “Atsushi!”

“No it isn’t, you just made that up,” was the dark-haired travelers instant reply. The stranger looked sheepish at this, biting his lip and frowning while avoiding eye contact. 

“Well, it’s ...Hinata, I guess. But I didn’t want to tell you!” Brown gaze suddenly back on him and shining with mischief, Yamaguchi felt like he was caught in a whirlwind, being pulled in sudden and unpredictable directions. “You could be a… a… undercover guard or something, who knows!”

Suddenly raising his fists defensively, Hinata narrowed his eyes at him with unconcealed suspicion. 

“You _aren’t _an undercover guard, are you?”__

“No, no, of course not. I just… was curious about your hair,” he replied with a nervous laugh. Oh geez. This kid, crazy vibe and all, was on the run. “Your uhh… graffitti. It’s not legal, is it?” 

“Nope!,” Hinata confirmed with a brilliant smile, rubbing the back of his hair in bashful acknowledgement of Tadashi’s curiosity. 

“Uh-huh. Neat.” 

“Yep!” 

_Tssssssssssssssssssssssst. Tst. Tsssssssst._

The traveler was beginning to make out wings from the shape that was being plastered to the wall, though he was glancing nervously at the alley entrance once every few seconds. There was something oddly familiar about the shape of it, even though outstretched bird wings weren’t all too uncommon as symbols. 

Three short sprays, pointed at the tips and wider at the bottoms, nested in between the two wings after a minute, and Tadashi’s heart suddenly sank with realization. 

“Oh, it’s.... Oh, wow,” he said numbly. 

Sprayed across the stone was a large, black crow, perfectly symmetrical, wingtips stretched as if it was in mid-flight. It lacked a head and was instead surmounted by a black, three-pointed crown. He’d seen this symbol before years and years ago, probably from before he was even ten. 

“That’s the dark prince.” 

Hinata nodded solemnly, a look that seemed out of place on him. 

“But why are you painting the symbol? He’s been dead for years, that whole family got wiped when Oikawa the First took over.” Tadashi had been too young to really, truly understand it at the time, but he remembered the brief months of chaos that had broken out under the new queen and then just as quickly suppressed under her power. He had very little political grasp on the event. He did, however, know that many people sided with the new Queen Oikawa because she actually did what the people weren’t brave enough to do. What that meant, concerning tensions about the previous Kageyama family and the birth of the publically dubbed “Dark Prince” years before the sudden usurpation, he had mostly been kept in the dark about. People had their strong opinions about both sides. 

The public’s opinion about the queen’s son, and now king after her death, were much more direct. Nothing spoke that attitude louder than the common, yet hushed, reference to Oikawa the Second as the “Demon King”. 

“The heir to the throne…,” Hinata mumbled, abstaining from answering Tadashi’s question as he tapped his lips thoughtfully. “Would Oikawa get a lil’ shaken up if he met the true king, do you think?” 

The orange haired boy was so oddly quiet and reserved in the moment that Tadashi couldn’t help but to lean in and cling to the words, catching the glimmer of a mischievous smile quirking the boy’s lips. 

_He’s dead,_ were the words that rested on the tip of his tongue. 

The stranger tilted his head back to look at him directly and he was caught in that spotlight of a smile. At this moment, Tadashi picked up a distant commotion of clinking metal and shifting chains, underlined by the rhythmic marching of feet. 

“Wanna hear a secret?” 

He anxiously nodded, glancing at the golden-lit street where the tramping was coming from. Those were guards, almost certainly. Someone had probably tipped them off to the graffitti-ing. 

“The prince is alive” 

If it was anyone else, Tadashi probably would have snickered dismissively. But those wide eyes, glowing with raw, unrestrained emotion, didn’t look like liar’s eyes. They looked full, intent, _hopeful._ They looked like they believed those three words down to the core. 

“I’ve seen him.” 

He couldn’t help it. Swept up in the wild cyclone that was Hinata, staring open-mouthed at the orange haired boy framed on both sides by two black, painted wings, Tadashi believed it too. 

...If just for the split second before five armed guards stormed into the alley, each and every one of them baring the Demon King’s symbol. 

One of them barked “Grab him!,” forcefully pointing at Hinata, although the rest moved fast enough it was clear they didn’t need the command. In an instant they had him surrounded, leaving Yamaguchi completely ignored. Heart pounding, he reached out his hand as if to say _Wait, hold on, don’t hurt him,_ but could only numbly open and close his mouth. In between two spears, Hinata and Yamaguchi made eye contact. 

Hinata, fearless, gave him a big, mischievous thumbs-up. 

There was a blinding flash of light. He saw the guards raise their braces to cover their eyes an instant before he did the same, gritting his teeth against the sudden heat and tingle of magic. 

“ _FUCK’S SAKE,_ ” one of the guards shouted above the ringing in his ears. 

When the light faded, there was just the painted crow and silence. An empty canister clattered to the ground, echoing in the alley and rolling to a stop at one of the guard’s feet. 

Hinata was gone like a blink, only the symbol left to define his existence. Tadashi felt like he had been left in direct, blazing sunlight for hours.  
All five of the guards groaned in unified disappointment. One of them half-assedly attempted to rub at a painted wingtip with his finger, and another patted him on the back with a, “Don’t bother, you know that shit’s sealed.” 

Tadashi, nervously edging towards the street, said, “I’m, ahh… not with him.” 

“Yeah yeah, we know, kid. We’ve been after that fuckin’ street rat for months. You probably just got caught in his gravity, huh?” 

He nodded, swallowing. Weird how they were able to put that pulling sensation into words. 

The guard shook his head in begrudging wonderment. “Yeah, I’d keep away from him if I were you. He’s not dangerous per say, just destructive and delusional. Have a good afternoon.” 

Tadashi nodded again, wordless, then quickly spun away from the five dispirited soldiers and out of the alley. 

The dark prince, alive? 

Nah. 

\---------------------------------------  
Tadashi, though a bit shaken up from the frankly bizarre alleyway encounter, proceeded with the rest of the day like he had planned. He isolated the smell of sweet potato fries on the busy street and allowed it to pull him to the stand itself like a lead. A few coins lighter and a few fries heavier, he steered away from the stand cupping a brightly colored paper tray of them in one hand. It was pleasant, sweet and salty, and unmistakably familiar. The scent brought with it a sense of nostalgia that induced flashbacks of going to small, local carnivals at his hometown, partaking in fair food and trying his hand at a variety of games. 

He couldn’t help but smile in bittersweet yearning for those days. At least the fries were good. 

With still hours to kill before sunset, the traveler hit a number of eye-candy shops. He was really starting to map out Tholstead, noting a few interesting places for the future. Only then did he finally allow himself to go to that beautiful, pillared building. 

Finally, after baking in the sun and being sidetracked by that orange haired deviant and hitting as many other places as he could, he tread up the entrance stairs and was immediately enveloped in a blanket of cool quiet. 

This place was- wow holy shit. 

He let his eyes adjust to the darkness, so stark compared to the brilliant outdoors. Rows of tall, dark-wood shelves lined the inside of the massive room. Their edges were set and ordered to create a large, open circle in the center of the room, where several likewise circular tables sat for people to use. A spiral staircase curled out from the edge of the center circle, leading his eyes up to a second story. 

It was indeed a library, like Tadashi had guessed, but it was a library unlike any he had encountered before. 

This was because there was a swirling pattern carved in the center of the circle and branching outwards over the entire building, threads lacing over bookshelves and walls. Every few seconds, a pulse of gentle, red light spread outwards across the pattern from the center point, slowly moving across the building in all directions until it faded into oblivion. 

When the wave of light approached him he had stepped back instinctually, eyes wide and alert. But the red just passed under him like a scanner, leaving him with the vague sensation that another presence had brushed against his. Quiet, gentle… listening? With a shiver he rubbed his hands up his arms, the tang of unfamiliar magic on his tongue. 

He couldn’t decide whether he felt like he was intruding on something or not. 

But there were a handful of other people there, perusing books, so it had to be ok. Still, he probably wasn’t allowed to have food… Tadashi clutched the tray of fries close to his body to conceal it.  
Alright. So. Down to business. He still had hours before sunset and before he went off to reunite with the dragon. So… maybe he should do some research. 

_I need to find some books on dragons._

At that thought, Tadashi was crossed with another wave of that red light, illuminating the patterns beneath his feet. And something extremely unusual happened. 

That thought _froze_ in his head, hovering in place like a fly. A single sentence locked in place. He felt the same watchful presence from before, invisible fingers flipping through the syllables of that idea like they were pages from a book. Then what felt like a nod of acknowledgement, somehow both completely formless and completely nonverbal. With a flicker of magic like the curling of a cat’s tail, his mind was released. 

A soft red light from a bookshelf ushered his attention and he made out a row of books, highlighted by the glow. Realizing that the air had frozen in his lungs, Yamaguchi pulled in a shaky breath. Ok. Ok, cool. This was fine. Convenient, even. As unsettling as it was, probably just for the first time, this library had a magic field that helped readers find books. 

“Wow,” he whispered, despite himself, and one of the people at a table smiled at him sympathetically as if to say _You’ll get used to it._

After grabbing a volume from the highlighted section of the shelf, Tadashi found himself at a round table close to the edge of the center circle. He flipped through the book, searching for content on dragons that might pique his interest. For the most part, a lot of it was common knowledge; dragons inspire folklore, create chaos, have implicit magic, etc, etc. 

It occurred to him that maybe he was invading Tsukishima’s privacy somehow by doing this. Like he was digging through his friend’s belongings or family history without permission. 

He had been all-too-casually skipping a chapter on mating theories with a grimace, into one on social behavior, when he heard a quiet shifting oddly close by. Stopping in place, finger slipped under a faded page, he took a quick glance around him. 

Tadashi had been expecting to see a person, maybe, probably just someone sneaking past him. So at first, he didn’t register anything unusual around him. Then a soft flicker of black caught the corner of his eye and he turned to face the closest bookshelf. 

He started. Two, slit-pupil yellow eyes gleamed at him from the shadows, just above his own eye level. He was quick to discern that the flicker he’d seen was the end of a long, shaggy black tail, thoughtfully swaying off the side of the shelf. 

“Pppproaw?” 

The cat was slightly larger than what he was used to seeing, maybe some kind of maine coon. It was all messy black fur, sticking up in odd places and glued to the wood beneath it from static. As he watched, it casually stretched out a paw towards him, claws flexing. 

_“Are you supposed to be in here?”_ Tadashi breathed, looking around anxiously to make no one else could hear him. In response, the cat ran its tongue over a toothy, feline grin and twisted itself onto its back. Intelligent, challenging eyes continued to watch him. 

Yamaguchi shook his head, strands of long hair falling over his face as he leaned back over the book. Something something dragons are territorial something something skirmishes can start devastating wildfires… Actually, that was pretty interesting. He traced his steps and re-read the passage carefully. 

_Although it grows up in a small, close-knit family for the first ten to fifteen years of its life, a dragon that reaches sexual maturity will begin to become territorial. As tension between a young dragon and its parents increases in intensity, it will eventually be evicted from the hold. It will be forced to find its own territory in order to feed, and will aggressively defend it from other dragons or creatures it perceives as threats-_

“Maow,” came the insistent call of the cat. 

_“Shhhhhh,”_ Tadashi hushed, looking back up from his book. What do you want, he mouthed, squinting at it. The cat stretched lazily, nose twitching. Wide, yellow eyes gleamed attentively at the crook of his elbow pressed to his body, where he was keeping the… Oh. 

Tadashi put his hand over the tray of sweet fries defensively, biting the inside of his cheek before whispering, “It’s not like I’m getting it on the books or anything.” 

The cat rolled to its feet and gracefully lept down onto Tadashi’s table, paws softly absorbing the impact. The traveler slowly pulled the book closer to his chest and pushed himself back in his chair, almost too close to the cat for comfort. 

Usually, Tadashi was very good with animals, cats included. But there was an air of keenness around this black feline that inspired caution in him. Cats were smart, sure, but he hadn’t really seen this much of a perceptive responsiveness before. Like it understood his words. 

Sinking down and tucking its paws underneath its shaggy fur across from him, the cat persistently flicked its tail. Its nose was still twitching, straining its head up to catch the invisible whiffs of sweet fries on the air, ears up and alert. 

_“You aren’t having any,”_ Tadashi whispered, hugging the fries closer. It couldn’t be healthy, right? He couldn’t imagine grease or starches appearing anywhere in a cat’s natural diet. That, and he was of course just a little bit protective over the tray. 

The cat scrunched its nose and meowed with insistence, eyes narrowing. Stubborn. At the cat’s call, the young man looked around desperately and raised a hand in a feeble attempt to shush it. Someone from another table glanced over the rim of their reading glasses at him and he grimaced apologetically. 

_“You’re making a scene,”_ he hissed. 

The cat’s eyes widened, a spark of mischief flaring up behind them, and smiled widely. It was a gesture that was _completely_ non-animalistic, too triumphant and unsettling all the way to the core. 

In that moment he knew he had lost. 

Exploiting that chink in Tadashi’s armor, the weakness that had so treacherously appeared, the feline keeled dramatically onto its side and- “Wait, don’t-” _wailed._ Numerous pairs of eyes were on him in an instant and Tadashi lept to his feet, noisily pushing himself away from the table and the sobbing cat. It cried like it had suffered a mortal wound, teeth flashing under the lamplight, glinting eyes squeezed to slits. 

“SSSSHHhh Sshhh shshshshhshhhhshsh shutup shut up fine you can have some,” he stammered, frantically attempting to usher in the cat’s silence. At that, it closed its mouth almost immediately, cry mellowing out to a satisfied purr. Tadashi breathed hard, shaken, as one by one all the pairs of eyes in the library returned to their books. “You are a _villain.”_

The cat purred expectantly, lips pulled back over its stark, white teeth in a knowing grin. With a resigned sigh, Tadashi pushed the tray of fries towards it. After delicately taking the ends of three, four, five fries in its mouth like cigarettes, the feline bounded off the table and sauntered back into the maze of bookshelves. Tadashi glared at its tail, shaggy fur waving with infuriating self-satisfaction, until it vanished. 

Only then did he allow himself an amused titter. The cats in this town were certainly something else. His eyes slid back down to the dull yellow page, retracing his steps to find the point he had left off from.  
_Skirmishes between two, fully mature wild dragons can be devastating on the same level as natural disasters. Each one has a vast reserve of implicit magic that can act powerfully and unpredictably when put under a large amount of pressure, not to mention the characteristic “fire breath” that has the potential to start wildfires. Because of the intense and often deadly battles that frequently result from encounters, dragons tend to avoid engaging with others of their kind altogether. Because of this, mating and raising young are practices that are virtually unknown and can only be theorized. These kinds of social behaviors are theorized to be extremely rare, which would explain why the apex predator has such a small population._

__Scholar Akemi Sato makes the following note in her acclaimed volume The Paradox of Dragonkind:_ _

__“This is why, despite the power, despite the prowess, despite the terror the word invokes, a creature of dragonkind can also be known as ‘the loneliest creature on the planet.’” (p213, Sato)_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo yo I'm just gonna be straight up with you, the scene where Hinata was introduced was mostly just some world building + set up if I ever decide to write a sequel in the distant distant future. also omg the drawing was like a 5 minute scribble but I put off for so long hgjskhfjd so whatever I don't have regrets. 
> 
> I've almost caught up to myself now which is kinda terrifying and i haven't written anything for a week or two because I've had some friends visiting from christmas break plus I'm job hunting and my mind has been a bit occupied. soon I'll be back on it though ; )
> 
> please leave a comment/kudos if you wanna see more thank you i love you


	5. Chapter Five

Yamaguchi went back to the island that night, after waiting in the harbor in giddy anticipation for the moon to rise. It had waned slightly, not as big as it had been on the first night but still gazing down on the rippling water like a massive silver eye. 

What felt like hours of doubt and excitement rolled over and over in his head as he sailed towards the moonpath. When the island had finally crested over the horizon, he let out a relieved sigh that took all of his tension with it. 

So it was real, after all. Not a dream. It was tangible, the sand under his feet, the vague smell of smoke, the taste of seawater. 

The dragon had been waiting, it seemed, curled on the hill and watching him approach with watchful amber eyes. Tadashi felt the grin overtake him, despite his initial resistance. 

“Hey Tsukki,” he said casually, finding a resting point in that previously-established safe distance away. 

Tsukishima didn’t respond, just blinked in acknowledgement, double eyelids flashing under the starlight. 

“So it’s gonna be like this today too, huh,” Tadashi sighed, sinking into a sitting position and ruffling his hair. He had hoped that maybe, just maybe Tsukishima would have greeted him too, maybe he would have found it in himself to speak. He bit his lip, a vaguely sick feeling of concern welling up in his gut. What had happened, in the years Tsukki had been gone? Obviously a lot, more than he’d be able to scratch the surface of tonight. 

Still, he remembered what he decided. He was going to get through to him, no matter what. So he smiled, an easy, comforting gesture, so he would look less worried.

“That’s fine. I have enough to talk about for both of us.”

\---------------

“... And then I said- fuck hold on-,” Tadashi gasped for air, wrapping his arms around himself in a feeble attempt to control his laughter. “I said- ‘Wait… we’ve forgotten someone,’ and we both just stared at each other for a solid four or five seconds when we realized and- fuck- in my years of traveling I have never in my life seen a dwarf turn and run that fast-”

His voice broke and he was down for the count, keeled over onto the grass and almost crying from laughter. Tsukishima had raised his horned head to listen and now watched him apprehensively, tongue flicking out with that characteristic Tsk. They had been like this for hours, with Tadashi recounting highlights of his travels and the dragon curled up beside him. It had pretty much been exclusively a one-sided conversation, but Tadashi could tell that the dragon was listening attentively. Even if it was just because there wasn’t anything else to listen to. 

Eventually Yamaguchi was able to right himself, vision blurred from tears.

“Anyways,” he said shakily, sniffing and rubbing his eyes with his palms. “Uhhh… that was maybe a few months ago, right before I decided to start looking for you.”

The dragon slowly lowered his head to the grass with a quiet but rumbling groan, face turned away. The dry grass rustled as it was flattened by his scales.

“Oh _right,_ I forgot,” Tadashi said with sharp humor in his voice, tilting his head at Tsukishima. “You would have preferred it if I never did that, right? ‘Cause I wouldn’t be disturbing the peace and quiet of your little vacation island.” His reply came in the form of the flicker of a reptilian tongue. 

He cleared his throat with a sheepish grin and continued, “So, yeah. I went back home, to my old house in the mountains. You know what I’m talking about. We used to try to find bones in the backyard. I’m not really sure why I went back. Maybe to find a clue? Thought I’d be able to retrace your steps.”

Shaking the hair out of his face, he stared wistfully up at the sky. 

“Of course, it had been, what… nine, ten years since you vanished? So I didn’t find anything. And I thought that was it. I’d just been chasing a fantasy.”

The dragon was watching now, a slit pupil fixed on him from the corner of his yellow eye. 

“Until I remembered what you said about the moon being some kind of guiding spirit. ‘Course, it was a stupid idea. But I didn’t have much to loose and I left for the coast soon after that, if just to… you know, get a sense of closure.”

Tsukishima rolled his eyes, and Tadashi would have hit him if he was any less respectful of their distance. 

“Shut up, I know it’s cheesy. But it worked, didn’t it? The moon brought me to this island, and here you are. I bet you did the same thing and ended up here years ago.”

With a huff, the dragon turned his head away in that all-too-discreet way Tadashi recognized even in his non-human form. He smirked, having been rewarded, if just a little bit, by his digging. 

\--------------------

While they were moving through their now-established routine, bouncing to different points of the island as soon as the view grew stale, Yamaguchi noticed something he hadn’t before then. As Tsukishima stood and stretched out his wings, the scales on his shoulder caught the moonlight and highlighted a certain disorder to the neat, yellow scales. Tadashi stilled in place to watch the light roll over the muscle.

There were scales missing in two long, curved bands running over his shoulder and down to his ribcage, exposing the white skin underneath them. The skin was knotted around the edges. Like it had been ripped. 

Was he looking at scar tissue?

Swallowing, an empathetic twinge ran up his arms and set his hairs on end. Then the scars were gone again, shadows concealing them as the dragon’s wings tucked back against his body. 

He didn’t bring it up, although it nagged insistently at the back of his mind for the remainder of the night. 

\-------------

The following evening, Tadashi did something new.

After pulling the boat onto the beach (although there was hardly a reason to be concerned about the tide, seeing how the moon seemed to be stuck in limbo over the island), he held a paper bag behind his back and nervously fussed with it.

He found Tsukishima by the beach outside his cave, patiently twitching his tail tip against the sand. When he approached, the dragon slowly raised his head, alert and tilted back to catch the sweet scent that was drifting across the air. The tail twitch had turned into a back-forth-back-forth lash like a cat getting ready to pounce, eyes fixed on the bag hungrily. 

“You like it?” he teased, sitting down across from him on the beach and opening the bag. “I bet you don’t usually get baked goods here. Now you owe me like... a wish or something.”

Laughing cheerfully, he pulled down the paper to reveal the strawberry shortcake. This specific treat he knew to be Tsukishima’s favorite, the one he had always glanced at out of the corner of his eye while pretending to be uninterested when they had walked past the town bakery. Tadashi had scoured Tholstead that afternoon to find an adequate bakery and pick it out the one that made his mouth water the most when he passed over it. 

It was a gift, of course. No particular occasion. But maybe… maybe the sweetness and nostalgia would make him open up a bit more. Maybe it would make the dragon thankful to him, he thought with a strange flicker of desperation. 

 

_I really am selfish,_ Tadashi realized, smile fixed.

Head low and eyes wide, Tsukishima stalked forward, quietly, smoothly. Dilated, unblinking eyes reflected the moonlight, glowing in glimpses of opaque white. Tadashi could see the predatory lines in his body and movement, and his smile faltered a little bit. 

“Tsukki-,” he said nervously, lifting up a hand in an instinctual, warding gesture. Come to think of it, he had no experience with dragon behavior. If he lost control, Tsukishima could tear him apart. Maybe he shouldn’t have the mini cake directly on top of him. 

But the dragon stopped a few meters away, coiling back into a stooped sitting position and eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. The traveler swallowed. The mood couldn’t be more clear. 

“Here, I’ll set it down,” Tadashi said with a resigned sigh, placing the cake on a boulder and brushing the sand off of himself. “I get it, you probably don’t want me to watch you.”

He backed away slowly from the creature and the cake, taking his retreat. Despite himself, he couldn’t help but feel a sting, his distance with Tsukishima hanging almost tangible in the air. 

So much had changed. He supposed it really was just a fantasy that he would have been able to reconnect with him with a cake and a few days of pestering. To bring them all the way back to their innocent, childhood friendship. That really was unrealistic, in the end.

Still, it would help if Tsukishima would at least talk to him. 

When he returned twenty minutes later, having given him plenty of time to do what he pleased with the cake, he found with a dull sinking of his heart that both the treat and the dragon had disappeared, leaving behind only the crinkled paper bag.

Moving over to the boulder to pick up the trash, Tadashi noticed something peculiar. There were dragon footprints in the sand leading from the indent the dragon had been laying in up to the boulder, but none leading away. He couldn’t have taken flight, Yamaguchi certainly would have heard it or seen it. Tsukishima was far from a small dragon. 

Frowning, he crouched to try to get a better look in the half-darkness. A pattern of strange divots in the sand caught his attention, laid out in a receding line all the way back to the cave. 

What the hell? 

Oh. Footprints, he realized, heart skipping a beat.

Human footprints. 

He turned his head to the cave in wonder, but could only make out darkness in its expanse.  
Of course, he’d suspected this. But the realization still crashed over him, weakening his knees.

“Tsukki, you- you-” he mumbled, fighting for the right word with his numb mouth. 

_“-Jerk.”_  
\-------------------  
Tsukishima didn’t reveal himself again that night. So Tadashi eventually left, feeling shut out but with an even more amplified drive. He was getting there. Slowly, he was chipping away at the armor. 

The following night, he set sail once again, pushing the boat onto the dark membrane of water and out into the bay. There were a handful of wispy clouds stretched across the sky, silvery grey against the midnight blue background. 

Tadashi kept a watchful eye on these clouds, a pit of apprehension opening in him when one of them drifted across the top half of the moon. The foggy barrier cut down the light a degree, not enough to obscure the path but just enough to cause a haze of darkness to fall over him.

Of course, his luck up to this point had been phenomenal. Perfectly clear skies had dominated the week, but his instincts told him that cover would probably be rolling in soon. 

What would he do without the moonpath? 

Just wait for the clouds to clear again, he supposed. But how long? How long would it take? How long would Tsukishima be waiting for him? How-

His skin felt cold, sickness bubbling underneath it. Oh, he laughed weakly to himself. This was anxiety. 

But the boat rocked gently. And the stars were still beautiful. And he forced himself to breathe, cool sea air clearing his head. He’d jump that hurdle when he got to it. He still had at least one more night before the indefinite cloud cover. One more night to chip away at that scaly shell.

It’s ok. He could get there.

Tadashi closed his eyes and listened to the soft rustling of the water.

And then opened them again slowly, suddenly tense, parting his lips in a wordless question.

Because something felt strange. 

Tadashi twisted in place to look behind him and then quickly sat up, scanning the horizon around him in a circle. Nothing. But that couldn’t be it, that wasn’t right. Nothing wouldn’t bring his senses to a singing peak like this. 

There was something, a presence. 

Not like Tsukki. Not like the strange library. 

He was being watched. 

Sometimes, when he was a kid, he would wake up in the middle of the night to get a cup of water. On the way back to his room, he would always become increasingly aware of the darkness in the hall behind him, growing in power the longer he looked away, until he leapt to the safety of his bed. 

That was how he felt now, seized by a visceral, deep feeling of _dread._

But what? There was nothing in the sky, nothing on the surface. No pirates, no sea birds. Just quiet water and a moon, half-covered by a wispy cloud. 

And in that moment he could feel the massive expanse of water beneath him. He didn’t know how deep oceans could be. But fathomless darkness laid beneath him, piled and layered down miles and miles and miles more than enough to engulf him and miles and miles anything could be down there and miles and miles-

Tadashi hissed in a slow, shaky breath, pulling himself into a huddled ball in the center of the boat. _There could be anything down there._

He jerked his head up, heart suddenly pounding. That had to have just been a wave, the thing that had caused his boat to very slightly move just at that moment. Barely noticeable. Just a wave.

_Thudthud thudthud thudthud._ Heart playing a mantra, he went frozen, attentive to any movement of the boat that might break the pattern of the gentle rise and fall of the waves. 

He didn’t even breathe. 

Seconds passed. Thirty, forty seconds. 

_Bump._

_Thudthudthudthudthudthud-_

“Ah-,” he hissed, starting as something definitely, certainly, absolutely bumped against the bottom of his boat. No. No. Nononono. Nonono. 

He was only forty five or so minutes into the journey, he wasn’t nearly close to the island. There was nowhere to run, he was stuck at sea, there was a thing in the water underneath him that was watching him and touching him. 

He couldn’t escape. 

That thought seized him by the throat, choking out a gasp. The pounding in his ears drowned out anything and everything, drowning him in heavy, oppressive panic. 

_Bump._

This one was harder, more persistent. The boat rocked. Ripples spread outwards, shattering the moonlight across the water.  
Whatever the thing was, it was getting bolder. Like the first two brushes had just been samples.  
Tadashi cradled his knees closer, tighter against himself. Like that would save him somehow. 

No escape. 

_He_ wasn’t even going to know why Tadashi stopped coming. 

A sudden shift in light caught his attention somehow, through the blind panic. He glanced up, through blurry eyes, towards the moon. 

The cloud that had been drifting across the top edge was now rolling gently away, allowing the full brilliance of it to shine down onto the ocean. 

And just like that, with a swirl of movement that caused his boat to spin in the water, the presence vanished, plunging back into the endless darkness below. 

Tadashi exhaled all the stagnanted breath in his lungs, collapsing onto his back. He focused on breathing, letting his heart slow down as time passed and the presence didn’t return. 

What _was_ that? 

Hopefully just a particularly large, curious fish. Something told him that he probably didn’t have enough luck left for that to be the case. 

But he wasn’t going to go back to Tholstead tonight. He had come this far already, might as well carry though even though his body still sang with adrenaline. 

Alternating suspicious glances between the clouds and the sea, he continued the trek. 

_\---------------_

“Tsukki, where are you at?,” the dark haired traveler called over the slope of the main island hill. Maybe he was still in his cave, or was out flying somewhere over the water. Still, it was a little bit unusual. 

The last couple times he visited, he had encountered the dragon waiting for him in the visible open. Tonight, he couldn’t seem to find him. 

Resigned to wait, Tadashi found a place in the dry grass to sit and lean his back up against a tree overlooking the cliffside. This tree was where he had first encountered the dragon, wasn’t it? On a night of some whimsical gamble and chance? 

Was it really chance though, he wondered, methodically running his fingers through the grass and pulling it slowly out of the earth. 

Someone cleared their throat. 

Yamaguchi took a double take on himself, hand frozen in the grass, making sure he hadn’t been the one who had made the quiet noise. 

No, not him. His brain was suddenly processing slowly, putting the numbers together. A very human noise, that had come from an outside entity. An outside entity being not Yamaguchi. A very human noise, as opposed to a very dragon noise. He and Tsukishima were the only inhabitants on the island. He was the only human inhabitant on the island. Yesterday, he saw a pair of human footprints leading away from the boulder he had set the cake on for the dragon. Which meant… 

_He’s back?_

Yamaguchi turned his head towards the source of the noise. A silhouette, tall, taller than him, standing at the edge of the cliff and brushing something off of its sleeve in a familiar way that was just slightly too casual. Something about it seemed off though, even as Tadashi’s heart lept into his throat. 

“...Tsukki?” he murmured uncertainty, moonlight cutting through his irises and making them positively glow with anticipation.  
The figure sighed, and as its shoulders fell Tadashi figured out just specifically what seemed _off_ about it. 

Two curled horns, flat and pale, ran on either side of the person’s head and ended in points at the jawline. A crown perfectly paralleling the head of the dragon. 

The person sat down cross-legged where it stood across from him, and as the moonlight fell across their lap he could see some kind of regal, intricate robe, fringed and edged with what seemed to be a pattern of intricate scales. 

“Ugh, we need some light, hold on-” 

With a mutter he could barely hear, the figure reached forward and Tadashi watched them rotate their hand until it faced palm-up. A spark snapped between each of the fingers and they converged in the center of the palm, twisting around each other and growing in size until they merged into a hovering, yellow orb. Tadashi could see the flash of glasses lenses and blonde lashes, lit from underneath by the magic. 

He could barely breathe. 

“...I’m sure you have questions,” Tsukishima said, voice low, watching a point just to the left of Tadashi’s head with tired eyes. 

“Y-yeah.” 

“I’m not going to answer everything. But I think I owe you a little bit. 

A dull, uncomfortable quiet settled between them. Tadashi swallowed. 

Tsukishima folded his hands in his lap. 

Slowly, painstakingly, Tadashi lifted a finger and steadied it at Tsukishima’s head. 

“So if you have horns…” he started thoughtfully, desperate to break the silence. Tsukishima was looking now, amber-brown eyes turned up at him expectantly above the light. He was too calm and too cool, a facade that conveyed the opposite to Tadashi. They were both nervous, both unsettled, and he could feel the tension of guilt in the air. 

But Yamaguchi bit his tongue, hard, fighting to keep the rising grin contained. 

“Does that make you-” 

“-If you say horny I will obliterate you off the face of this island.” 

Tadashi laughed. The tension shattered. 

With a groan, Tsukishima closed his eyes and raised his hands to rub his face. 

“You saw the opportunity and you took it, huh? Guess you haven’t aged at all since you were, what, eleven?,” he said with that characteristic sharp tongue, but Tadashi could hear the concealed humor in his voice. 

And just like that, everything was better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey lads it's me and uhhh y'all are gonna hate me but I have to take a brief hiatus while I figure out what I'm gonna do for my new job etc etc etc and work on certain scenes of dialogue because I fuckin suck at that. Just started getting to the Important Shit too lmaoo
> 
> anyways ily I'll be back soon, in the mean time you can follow me on tumblr @ egocider where I post all of my art.  
> please leave a kudos/comment if you wanna see more ; )


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